Embarassing day for Top Gear: evidence has surfaced implying that Jeremy Clarkson was totally aware of the fact that the battery of the Nissan Leaf tested for the final episode of the show’s 17th series did not have enough charge to finish its 60-mile journey. A serious issue, if you consider that the incident has been used to discredit electric cars‘ effectiveness as well as their place in the future of the automotive sector.

During the Top Gear test in fact we can see the Nissan Leaf running out of electricity half way through its journey to Lincoln - Lincolnshire - followed by the presenters’ 10-hour long struggle to get it recharged. Little we know that the show’s producers have deliberately flattened the battery before setting off in order to make electric vehicles look unmanageable and unreliable in the real world.

We have to remind you that Top Gear seems to have a problem with this kind of cars, often knocking them down, and is currently been sued by electric car maker Tesla for the similar alleged misrepresentation of their Roadster during a 2008 show. The Guardian seems to back up the Nissan Leaf test sabotage theory by pointing out that the car’s electronic dashboard would have notified the driver about the percentage of electricity available (and its translation in miles) as soon as he turned the ignition on.

Top Gear has replied stating that the point of the test wasn’t to make the vehicle look bad, but “to show how bad the charging infrastructure is in the UK [therefore] the car needed to run out of charge so that could be demonstrated” adding that the purpose of the test was not to test the car’s mileage claims. Still Jeremy, we feel a bit cheated.

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These videos, the first of many coming from BMW as it reveals its new ‘i’ range, show the future BMW i3 model. The new i3 is the citycar hatch equation of BMW’s electric project, and was first teased as the MegaCity model. It will use BMW’s new LifeDrive architecture, and should be an extremely lightweight, safe car.

The i3 uses aluminium and carbon-fibre reinforced plastic to keep weight down and has a design that uses two bench seats, front and back, for four passengers. A liquid-cooled lithium ion battry pack drives the 125kW motor with 170 hp and 250 Nm of torque - making it quite a respectful electric model. Performance includes a 0-60 run of four seconds, and a time to 100 km/hr of less than eight seconds. Top speed is limited to 150 km/hr.

We still don’t know exactly how far we’ll get with the BMW i3 range, but the company has been smart enough to equip this model with an optional range extender (REx), which uses a small combustion engine to increase the range. Other features so far include braking regeneration and different driving modes, including a PRO ECO mode for better efficiency. More after the jump.

Continue reading: BMW i3 videos

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The Renault Frendzy Concept will debut at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show as a cross between a small MPV and a work vehicle. The model has been designed by Laurens van den Acker as a 100 percent electric vehicle that can serve as both a family mover when needed, and a daily vehicle for workers on the go.

The Frendzy has been created to introduce future design motifs on the Renault range, and it seems extravagant is some ways, but smooth and organic in others. The model will also likely introduce some innovations to the interior of future Renaults, and is dominated by a 37-inch screen on the passenger side and ambient lighting.

A futuristic feel includes chrome finishes, while in “family mode” a wooden trim gives a camping feel. Plaited leather seats complete the comfort factor. It might seem kitschy, but the Frendzy is supposed to be quite a practical vehicle and the load space has been designed as a flexible, adaptable area with various room available at any time through moving the seats. Practical aspects include a soft roof, hooks and fixtures for the load, and adjustable storage spaces for smaller objects.

The Frendzy gets the Kangoo Z.E electric motor with recharge point in the Renault badge, 60 hp and 226 Nm of torque. The Renault Frendzy measures 4.09 metres long, 2.17 m wide and 1.7 m tall. Maximum load space is 2,250 litres and the Frendzy weighs 1,420 kg.

Renault Frendzy

Continue reading: Renault Frendzy Concept pics and details

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There are many things that go against the purchase of an electric car in the minds of the car buying public. From so-called “range anxiety” to monthly battery hire, battery life and replacement, and recharge times, the actual economics of buying an electric vehicle are far from simple.

Renault is claiming its new Fluence model, to be sold at a price of 17,850 pounds (about 20,000 euros) is the “UK’s most affordable electric car”. In Europe that translates to a real price of about 27,000 euros. The price includes the current UK government’s 5,000-pound “Plug-in Car Grant” and added to that overall price will be a monthly battery leasing arrangement of 75 pounds a month.

Renault has been investing heavily in its electric car range and the Fluence will be released in the UK next car. Comments on Autocar though, indicate what kind of problems electric cars in general, and the Fluence in particular, are facing on the market. Despite a fair price for an electric car, notoriously considered expensive vehicles in general, the Fluence will suffer from its sedan style inappropriate for city driving, a range of about 115 miles (depending on road conditions and quoted in kilometres as 120 km) and an apparent eight-hour recharge time from zero to full.

Add to those considerations battery leasing and replacement costs and timing, and you’re looking at a lot of people making some complicated calculations to figure out just whether this is right for them. While the Renault Fluence price is competitive with the Nissan Leaf, it looks like car manufacturers have some more work to convince the market beyond quoting possible average range figures that might actually be far less than anticipated. The most skeptical comment so far? Whether there’s room in the boot for a generator….

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For us the Audi A2 was akin to the Mercedes A-Class - we just never liked it, stylistically speaking. But then Mercedes went and made the A concept, giving the new car a sexy, coupé look, and now Audi is apparently planning a new A2 concept for the Frankfurt show. The new Audi A2 will still be an MPV model, but will be built from the ground up to support a fully electric platform, marking an important project for the company.

The A2 was always an innovative model for Audi, but its aluminium space frame meant that it was too expensive and it was discontinued. Since then, Audi seems to have a found a new vision to produce another A2, making it a technologically-laden vehicle for a new generation of electric family cars.

A revamped A2 has been in the rumour books for a while, but the real news from AutoExpress is that the model is apparently so popular internally, that Audi could consider an entire A2 family, creating almost a standalone brand in the style that BMW has done for its ‘i’ electric models. All will be revealed at Frankfurt.

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After our piece on the Opel HydroGen4 and how it’s being overtaken by modern electric cars, here we with a golden question – just how fun can an electric sports car get? We got to know the Venturi Volage open top electric at the Challenge Bibendum, with our guys from Autoblog.it. The event is the perfect setting for such a drive given that the Volage takes advantage of its collaboration with Venturi, together with Michelin who was sponsoring the event.

We saw it back in 2008 at the Paris Motor Show, and here it is finally to electronically rumble its way onto the list of the most powerful electric supercars. As per usual with Venturi, the technology is top class, with a flat platformed, all-wheel drive model with a carbonfibre chassis that gets weight down to 1,075 kg, batteries included (they weigh 350 kg). That’s impressive by any sports car standard, let alone electric.

The thing that really hits us about the Venturi Volage though, is its engine setup. It makes use of Michelin Active Wheels technology. Basically the active wheel is one inside which the engine and suspension setting is inserted. This means that we get four-wheel drive because each wheel is driven by its own electric motor of 55 kW, totaling 220 kW, or nearly 300 hp. Venturi told us that the electric motors per wheel are in fact, two: one for the suspension and one for actually driving the vehicle. That makes eight motors on one car.

Continue reading: Venturi Volage test from Bibendum Challenge

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If you’re wondering what the battery looks like in one of these cars, you’ve got a very good indication.” And so we open our post with two almost totally unrelated pieces, if weren’t for the fact that we’re sharing the electric car love today. After Euro NCAP tests, the Nissan Leaf has come off with five stars for its:

specially designed battery pack below the rear-seat compartment, making sure that not only occupants are well protected in a crash, but also that the risks of battery damage or high voltage leaking are reduced to zero.

We’re guessing that after a crash the Leaf wouldn’t look like the cars in the video from Jalopnik above. After the jump, you can see the Nissan Leaf crash test video to see exactly what does happen. The classification confirms the US safety IIHS results recently, and the word is that the Nissan Leaf “proves that EVs can be equally safe as common cars.”

Continue reading: How electric cars crash and Euro NCAP five stars for Nissan Leaf

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Here is a ‘test drive’ video of the Porsche Boxster E from the Challenge Bibendum event. The vehicle was driven by Günther Höchsmann, Senior Engineer at Porsche and one of the “father’s” of the car, although on such a short run it’s hard to get a real idea of the electric Porsche.

The strangest thing about riding in the Porsche Boxster E is how quiet it is. While in other electric vehicles the absence of the engine rumble is something we can get used to, in a Porsche that missing purr is particularly unusual. Engineers have included a kind of synthesised sound on the interior, but let’s face it - as much as we like the environment, that sound is never going to be like real Porsche engine noise. In fact, the only thing you’ll hear in the video above is the wind.

The Porsche Boxster E is equipped with a 90kW motor (about 120 hp), while torque is about 270 Nm. Performance stats are 0-100 km/hr in 9.8 seconds. That is significantly slower than the traditional Boxster’s 6.5 seconds. If that’s not enough for traditional Porsche enthusiasts, the company has worked on a solution of offering two motors totalling 240 hp and torque of 540 Nm. In that set-up, acceleration is down to about 5.5 seconds.

There has been talk that the Porsche cars of the future, albeit a future a long way off, will all be electric but we wonder if that’s a believable proposition. Unless Porsche were to become completely unrecognisable to what it represents now, or all the models will actually be something like the 911 GT3 R Hybrid. In which case we’re happy for that to happen.

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This is what we call bringing electric cars to the masses. In a city like Amsterdam, which has virtually no parking whatsoever in the town centre, residents buying an electric car get a free parking space and a recharge station to go with it. The European car initiative started back in 2009 but has really gained ground only recently, having reached its target of 200 recharge stations by 2012, a year earlier than expected.

In the future the plan will probably provide some logistical problems as the city finds extra space for these free spots (near where the resident who bought the electric car lives), but the plan is to add another 1,000 recharge spaces in the next few years. By 2015, Amsterdam city wants five percent of its cars to be electric, which would be a total figure of about 10,000 vehicles.

The free parking initiative runs through 2012 and could be extended if the success continues. It’s a significant investment for the city which is spending €5 million on recharge stations and another €3 million on assisting companies build up fleets of electric vehicles. The initiative was part of the attractiveness of Amsterdam for Nissan, who chose the city as its official launch location for the Leaf on the European car market.

Continue reading: Electric cars in Amsterdam get free parking space

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The new Renault Twizy electric vehicle will go on sale in Europe at a price of about 6,990 euros, with another 45 euros a month required for battery hire. Those figures are intended for a yearly travel range of 7,500 km. The Twizy will get its market launch at the end of this year and while it’s an original little model in the new urban motoring scene, we can’t see a lot of regular car customers spending this kind of money.

In any case, regardless of price, the Twizy is the kind of car that you have to like for its individuality, and appreciate on the environmental front. It has two seats and has driving characteristics similar to the agility of a scooter. It has an electric motor with 20 hp, 57 Nm of torque, a top speed of 80 km/hr and with these features, is strictly a new-age citycar for city-centre motoring.

Given our comments above about how the Twizy could be considered quite expensive from a conventional point of view, we guess you have to look at this in light of how it would work for your personal urban driving needs. A lot of compact hatches sell in Europe for about 9,000 euros (anything from the Opel Corsa, to the Fiat Punto to the Renault Clio, for example) meaning that for an extra two thousand euros, you get yourself a fully fledged motor vehicle.

Continue reading: Renault Twizy prices from 6,990 euros

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Could this mark the beginning of a true electric car evolution in Europe? The Nissan Leaf, an all-electric vehicle, has won the 2011 European Car of the Year Award in what was not, however, a smooth victory. According to some reports, some journalists had placed the Leaf at the bottom of the list of finalists, while others had put it first. The Nissan Leaf is now being cited as the first all-electric car that normalises this kind of vehicle, bringing the segment much closer to the readiness of consumers to swap from traditional fuel-powered units to the more environmental Leaf. Apparently it is the most ‘normal’ electric car on the market which could remove some of the stigma, and ‘weirdness’, surrounding this technology as it struggles to go mainstream.

The Nissan Leaf headed the list of seven finalists, with the Alfa Romeo Giulietta coming second (cited as the best car Alfa has built in years), followed by the Opel Meriva rounding out the top three. The rest of the models following were the Ford C-Max/Grand C-Max, the Citroen DS3 and C3 and the Volvo S60 and V60. In an interesting twist of fate, while the Nissan Leaf won for its novelty of being an electric car going mainstrem, the Dacia Duster low-cost SUV came last. We say interesting because while it’s not exactly a revolutionary vehicle, it works in the same kind of way the Leaf does - it brings a segment, often unattainable due to cost, much closer to the everyday consumer. See after the jump for the review from the Car of the Year website.

Continue reading: 2011 European Car of the Year: the Nissan Leaf

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Italy’s probably not considered the cradle of inspiration for a film like Back to the Future but this DeLorean DMC-12 replica comes from the Belpaese and celebrates 25 years of the cult film. It’s an electric replica of the car used in the 80’s film and was made by Wired Italia for an electric race across the country from Rome to Milan.

The race started on October 25th, the same date that Doc and Marty start their adventure, and the car has maintained the same style as the original DeLorean by Giorgetto Giugiaro with its gullwing doors. The Wired replica is a one-off prototype and the only car modified by the company so far. The motor is clearly not the nuclear-powered 1.21 gW of the film, but a standard (and more realistic) 90 kW electric unit.

The purpose of creating this car has been to promote electric power and environmentally-sustainable motoring. The original DeLorean DMC-12 was a sports car produced by the DeLorean Motor Company from 1981 to 1983. It was the only vehicle the company produced and as such was known simply as the DeLorean. It had a fibreglass platform, stainless steel bodywork, the gullwing doors, and was made in about 9,200 units.

The car has a fascinating history which you can read about on Wikipedia. We’re quite taken with this effort and think that this kind of innovation sits well with the Back to the Future film. In any case, we’ll happily check out these kinds of replicas anyday - see the gallery below for more.

DeLorean Back to the Future replica

Continue reading: DeLorean DMC-12 electric replica: Back to the Future electric car

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